March 13, 2009

He's invented a "Red Hot Poker" that's electrically heated to over 1700°F, which he then plunges into drinks, caramelizing the sugars and adding a toasty note to their flavors. Arnold told me in a recent interview that he's simply updating "the oldest boiling technology", pointing out that people originally boiled liquids in hollowed-out wood or clay pots by dropping heated rocks into them. (You see vestiges of this method in the superheated stone or iron pots used for Korean dolsot bibimbap.)

Arnold said that in the late 17th- and early 18th-centuries, a popular drink in what would become the US was a "flip" (no relation to the slightly-more-common "flip" style of cocktail with eggs, a sort of a creamless eggnog.) A flip consisted of ale, rum or brandy and sugar or molasses. The bartender would heat a "loggerhead" -- a tool consisting of a long pole with a ball on one end and a handle on the other, originally used to melt pitch -- in the fire and use it to heat the drinks. These flips were popular roughly until the Civil War.

After reading John Hull Brown's "Early American Beverages", Arnold became interested in flips and loggerheads, and decided to experiment with them. He first picked up some soldering coppers -- solid copper rods used in welding and soldering -- and heated them on the stove. Those infused a slight copper taste and "left little black flecks of metal in the drink", so they were unacceptable. He then built a small insulated box with a bendable heating coil inside, to warm a loggerhead-like poker...but that box got too hot: "We put a chicken heart in there, and it basically exploded." Vaporized poultry hearts aside, the iron poker also left a noticeable taste in the drinks. Next, he tried a high-temperature stainless-steel alloy, but that wasn't a terribly good conductor of heat, and it didn't heat the drinks with quite enough oomph.

So finally, he settled on an internally heated rod made from an esoteric nickel-based alloy, and he hooked it up to bendable heating coils and all kinds of thermocouples and other gear to control and monitor the temperature. When he demonstrated it to me, though, the equipment was recalcitrant, and he fought with it: first having to find a way to run it without blowing a circuit breaker, then discovering a short circuit and re-soldering it in front of me. The fixed version didn't have a working thermocouple on it, so the digital temperature display wouldn't be reliable. The indefatigable Arnold would have to gauge the temperature by eye. And monitoring the temperature is important: the Red Hot Ale cocktail he created ignites at 1700°F, the Red Hot Manhattan he also serves ignites at 1750°F...and the heating element burns out at 1800°F. Delicacy and a keen eye were going to be absolutely necessary.

(Before he got around to fitting the poker with a temperature display, Arnold had to learn what, say, 1700°F looks like. "The one reference we had", he said, "was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.'")

So he set to measuring out Ommegang Abbey ale, Courvoisier Cognac, a bit of simple syrup (since the poker's caramelizing effect takes some of the sweetness out, he mixes the cocktails a bit sweeter than usual), lemon juice, and some Regans' Orange Bitters, stirred them, and set them alight with the poker. The beer foamed wildly as he agitated the poker, and when it was done he set the finished drink in front of me. It was yeasty, toasty, and slightly sweet -- and it was wonderful and like nothing I'd ever tasted before.

Next up was the Red Hot Manhattan, which he made with Sazerac rye, Dolin vermouth, and Angostura bitters. This time the flames shot even higher, and the resulting toddy-like drink was very good -- still recognizably a Manhattan, with noticeable sweet-vermouth notes, but with the feel of warm whiskey.

After wowing me with the Red Hot Poker, Arnold then showed me another toy -- his rotary evaporator, or "roto-vap." Arnold uses it as a vacuum distiller, and infuses neutral spirits (el-cheapo vodka, filtered multiple times through charcoal) or other liquors with whatever he can think up. (Unlike the Red Hot Poker drinks, he can't sell the results at the French Culinary Institute's restaurants.) The low-temperature distilling infuses the flavors into the spirit with a great deal of presence; I sampled a caraway aquavit with a very forward rye-bread flavor, a peanut-infused Scotch that was fantastically fascinating, and even vodka and Scotch infused with hops. ("Hops-Scotch", of course.) The roto-vap removed the hops' extreme bitterness but left their characteristic flavor. I wish this stuff were more readily available...hmmm...perhaps I'll have to start trolling eBay for a roto-vap of my own.

Arnold is working on opening a bar with pastry-chef pal Johnny Iuzinni of Jean-Georges, but until then, you can taste the Red Hot Ale and Red Hot Manhattan at L'Ecole, the French Culinary Institute's restaurant.

The occasion was a "Pre-Prohibition Cocktail Party" at Keens Steakhouse, as part of the Zagat Vintage Dinner Series, which showcases 19th-century menus at various restaurants around town. Keens was an obvious choice for a venue to make 19th-century cocktails, as it's essentially unchanged since then. As Wondrich, who of course literally wrote the book on 19th-century mixology, told me, "there are only three bars in the city with this level of interior detail": Keens, Bill's Gay Nineties, and McSorley's. Keens started out as the Lambs theatrical club before manager Albert Keen went independent in 1885, and the event was held in the Lambs Room and connecting Lincoln Room there. The Lincoln Room has all kinds of neat Lincoln ephemera, most notably the Ford's Theater program
Lincoln was allegedly holding when he was shot.

The Beverage Alcohol Resource guys -- not just DeGroff and Wondrich, but also Andy Seymour, spirits review maven F. Paul Pacult (who has his own series of tasting events at Keens) and Steve Olson -- designed the cocktail menu, and Keens provided their signature mutton, as well as prime rib and house-smoked filet mignon. I also enjoyed the restaurant's recreation of a typical 19th-century saloon's "free lunch" -- black and white bread, with veal tongue, smoked salmon, and venison cold cuts, with plenty of gherkins and onions and mustards for one's sandwich.

The drinks served at stations around the room were varied, but all had pretty intense flavor profiles and were very forward -- I'm not sure if this is a hallmark of pre-Prohibition cocktails, but I kept wanting more and more water as I drank. I started out with a glass of USS Richmond Punch,
named for (and served on) the warship that captured New Orleans in
1862. It was much more strongly-flavored than most punches I've had, making it a nicely emphatic start to the evening. I haven't found many recipes for this one, but the one I did find calls for Jamaican rum, brandy, tea, Port, and orange curacao, which certainly makes for an interesting and rich punch. My next taste, equally flavorful, was the Improved Holland Gin Cocktail: two ounces Bols genever, a dash of Lucid absinthe, a dash of Fee's Whisky Barrel Aged bitters, a teaspoon of Luxardo Maraschino, and a quarter-ounce of rich demerara syrup. I followed that up with the Morning Glory Fizz, a small breakfast drink with Scotch (Talisker 10 Year, which I like a lot, but am not sure I could handle first thing in the morning), lemon, lime, simple syrup, and soda. I really liked this one, and am always impressed with good Scotch cocktails, since I tend to find it very hard to mix with. I may try my hand with this one at home, too. I'll also be making the Italian Wine Lemonade, which I think I'll serve in the summertime: a nicely intense lemonade with lemon juice, simple syrup, and water, served with a Port float. (Apparently it was originally served with a sherry float, which sounds intriguing too.) Very refreshing.

March 09, 2009

Hand Signals at the Stork Club. Manager Sherman Billingsley demonstrates the various hand signals he used in running the famous boite to LIFE magazine. Utterly fascinating, and makes me wish I could've taken a gander at the place. (Thanks to Czeltic Girl for the link);

Welcome, n00bs: this month's Mixology Monday theme is "First Time." To wit; what cocktail does one serve to someone who's never had a cocktail before? You want to whet their appetite for future cocktails (while simultaneously wetting their whistle), but you don't want to scare them off with tons of ingredients or acquired-taste flavors. As our fine hosts at LUPEC Boston put it:

What drink do you suggest for the delicate palate of the cocktail
neophyte? Something boozy and balanced, sure - but one wrong suggestion
could relegate the newbie to a beer-drinker’s life. To which go-to
cocktails do you turn to when faced with the challenge?

This probably isn't the place for love-it-or-hate-it flavors like anise, so I wouldn't go with something like a Monkey Gland. Nor would I go for, say, something with a pretty unusual flavor profile, like a Blood and Sand. But how to initiate the cocktail virgin into a lifetime of bibulous enjoyment?

Well, the first real cocktail I ever ordered -- aside from the Lemon Drop that a cousin foisted on me on my 21st birthday -- was a Manhattan. I was in a hotel bar in Los Angeles on a business trip, and wanted something interesting to drink that had whiskey in it. I knew what was in a Manhattan, but I'd never had one. As luck would have it, the bartender at the Radisson Downtown made a perfectly creditable specimen, and I was hooked.

The Manhattan was my go-to drink for quite a while, and when I discovered what bitters brought to the taste, it was even better. I branched out a little here and there -- I was well on my way to becoming a cocktail dork when I had a superlative Sidecar for the first time -- but it was an encounter with a Corpse Reviver No. 2 that really showed me what a cocktail could be.

But, I don't think a Corpse Reviver is the right drink to intiate a cocktail newbie -- you've got to measure everything carefully and make it just right in order for it to be balanced, or else you wind up with junk. And that could easily strike the neophyte as just too fiddly to bother with. Let them work up to it.

Rather, what I'd recommend for a first cocktail is something that's simple and balanced, and will hopefully provide a revelatory new experience, with a bit of elegance to boot. Something like the Aviation. It only has three (or perhaps four) ingredients -- more on that momentarily -- but offers a wealth of interesting tastes. There's sweetness and acid, fruit and herbaceousness, all working together and giving way to each other. The gin ties the drink together (but no, this isn't a Caucasian), the Maraschino adds the fruit as well as some earthy and nutty notes, and the lemon gives you acid and those wonderful citrus oils. You can taste each individual ingredient without too much effort, and yet you get the synergy of a well-balanced drink. What better way to get someone interested in the possibilities of cocktails?

I also like my Aviations with a teeny splash of Creme de Violette, as has become possible once again in the past year or so, but sometimes adding the floral note just seems like (ahem) gilding the lily. Better not to hit our cocktailian-in-training with too much at once. (But if they like that, by all means go ahead and introduce them to the pleasures of the Blue Moon.)

From there, it's a natural step to explain how sours work, and show the various other family members (e.g., Bacardis, Margaritas, Kamikazes/Cosmopolitans) and how they fit together, and hopefully you'll have a cocktailian on your hands before too long.